After a slight lull in 2009 when its leader Moham-med Yusuf was for-cibly sent to the great beyond in circumstances that fall in the realm of extra judicial killing by state security operatives in Borno state, the islamist group, Boko Haram has intensified terrorist attacks in a manner that tended to pose intra-ctable problem to the nation.
No less than 3000 people have been killed in the insurgency. Lots of property has been destroyed in the process. At the inception of President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Borno and Yobe last week, Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe told the President since the sect hit the state 209 public schools, vehicles and property worth about N2.5 billion, and private buildings estimated at N629 million have been either burnt or destroyed by the insurgents.
In the event that figures are compiled from Borno, Kano, Kaduna. Abuja, Bauchi, Kwara and other parts where the sect has operated, the afore mentioned figures will certainly pale into insignificance. Yet Yobe has expended a large chunk of its paltry resources on efforts to contain the security challenge. The Governor said the state spends an average of two hundred million Naira monthly on the problem and have donated over 150 patrol vans to security agents. Their effort is akin to a drop in the ocean.
The federal government and other affected states must have spent a hundred times more than Yobe, yet no one had got to the root of the matter. In the light of the menace and the threat of collapse of the economy of affected states, the Northern States Governors Forum set up a committee on Reconciliation, Healing and Security chaired by Ambassador Zakari Ibrahim. In its report, the committee urged President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a general and unconditional amnesty for the islamist sect. The report was handed over to Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger state who chairs the forum.
It came in the wake of a similar call from Sultan of Sokoto last Wednesday at the opening of the annual general meeting of JNI, the umbrella body of Muslims in the country. The Sultan whose exalted position makes the spiritual leader of muslims in the country said unconditional amnesty would encourage the Boko Haram members to lay down their arms. ‘’ …we want to use this to call on the government, especially the President, to see how he can declare total amnesty for all combatants[Boko Haram] without thinking twice. That will make any other person who picks up arms to be termed criminal.
So even if it is one person that denounces terrorism, it is the duty of government to accept that person and see how he can be used to reach others; the Sultan submitted. But in an indirect reply to the call for amnesty President Goodluck Jonathan addressing a gathering in Damaturu, said the Federal government would not consider amnesty for the insurgents until they come out from the shadows. ‘’ we cannot talk about amnesty for Boko Haram now until you see the people you are dealing with. Some people are comparing Boko Haram with Niger Delta, but in the Niger Delta if you call them militants they will come out but Boko Haram members do not come out and you cannot grant amnesty to ghosts’’ the President said.
He insisted there was need for one-on-one interface with between representatives of the government and leadership of the terror group. The call for total and unconditional amnesty for the group have received flaks from many who see it as ill timed and ill conceived. However, the lofty heights from which the call came may be an indication that current security handling of the situation has failed. The leaders have offered their solution in asking for amnesty. But what manner of amnesty would that be, given that the leadership of the group have largely lurked in the shadows except for occasional showing in the social media.
Such situation clearly casts a slur on any such move since there is no clear cut mechanism to identify members of the group and be sure that opportunists will not show up to benefit from the amnesty package. The matter becomes even messier with emerging factions of the group that appear to operate at cross purposes. Recently Sheik Abu Momammed Abdulazeez, said to be Boko Haram commander, sent a statement to journalists in Maiduguri saying that the group had declared cease fire and was ready for a truce. He said his comment had the consent of their leader Abubakar Shekau.
Since the statement came in late January attacks have not abated. The implication is that the group has been torn apart or the declaration was not authenticated by the leader or other factions ignored the call. Last October Shekau denied statements that behind-the-scene talks were going on with government when the state must have been led to believe that it was talking with the group. In the light of the foregoing, President Jonathan is largely right in his insistence that the group must come out from the shadows before amnesty can be dropped as a card on the discussion table.
Clearly economies of the affected states have been ran aground by the insurgency given hurried relocation of movers and shakers of the economy in those places and the unmitigated destruction of amenities in those states. However government must be genuine in its willingness to meet with leaders of this insurgency given past complaints that their members had been rounded up in the guise of truce talk.
The Sultan of Sokoto and the Governors who have called for amnesty need to play pivotal roles in getting the Boko Hara leaders to show them their faces as a means of facilitating the talk. All hands must be on deck to end this debilitating insurgency.
THE SUN
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